From Chan-wook Park, the celebrated director of OLDBOY, LADY VENGEANCE and STOKER, comes a ravishing new crime drama. PARK presents a gripping and sensual tale of two women – a young Japanese Lady living on a secluded estate, and a Korean woman who is hired to serve as her new handmaiden, but is secretly plotting with a conman to defraud her of a large inheritance. Inspired by the novel Fingersmith by British author Sarah Waters, THE HANDMAIDEN borrows the most dynamic elements of its source material and combines it with PARK Chan-wook’s singular vision to create an unforgettable viewing experience.
“One of the year’s sliest, sexiest thrillers. The first section is only part of the story. The rest is so suspenseful, sexy and surprising that it would be a shame to say any more.” – Entertainment Weekly
“A feast for all the senses.” – Rolling Stone
“A hugely entertaining thriller. Simmering with genuine sexual tension.” – The Guardian
Screening: Sunday, November 27 @ 2:00pm Monday, November 28 @ 7:30pm Tuesday, November 29 @ 5:00pm Wednesday, November 30 @ 7:30pm Sunday, December 4 @ 2:00pm Monday, December 5 @ 7:30pm Tuesday, December 6 @ 5:00pm Wednesday, December 7 @ 7:30pm
at the Riviera Theatre – 2044 Alameda Padre Serra
THE HANDMAIDEN
Directed by Chan-wook Park
Written by Seo-Kyung Chung, Chan-wook Park
Inspired by the novel “Fingersmith” by Sarah Waters
Starring Min-hee Kim, Kim Tae-ri, Jung-woo Ha,
Jin-woong Cho, Hae-suk Kim, So-ri Moon
Country of Origin: South Korea
Running Time: 144 min
Subtitled
Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of AFIFEST 2016 presented by Audi.
Divines is the first feature length film by self-taught director Houda Benyamina. Benyamina, Actress Oulaya Amamra, and Divines were AFIFEST 2016 winners of the New Auteurs Audience Award, the Breakthrough Audience Award and a Special Jury Mention for Acting.
The film opens in surreal fashion with an out of focus frame containing a smoke and fog-like effect reminiscent of a meditation and indicative of the filmmaker’s use of dream logic.
Quickly, homage is made to Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, with lead character, Dounia, played exquisitely by Oulaya Amamra, standing in front of a mirror pretending to fire a pistol while asking, “You looking at me?” Later in the film another homage to Scorcese is made from his early work, Mean Streets, with Dounia on her knees in the middle of the street pleading with God.
And, without too much adieu, Benyamina quickly takes us into the inner world of her lead character, Dounia. In a sacred space Dounia sneaks voyeuristically in a low-key lit, high-angle omniscient shot looking down on a theater stage during an audition. She likes what she sees in the form of Djigui, a dancer with moves and passion, played by Kevin Mishel.
A transition is made to a rambunctious classroom. Soon, Dounia is arguing with hyper intensity as Dounia questions her teacher’s values and choice of vocation. The moment culminates with Dounia quitting school vowing to “show them.” Her vocation is to make money.
Another transition is made to a slow motion sequence in a darkly lit dance club playing diagetic music from a singing disc jockey. Here we see Dounia’s troubled mother inebriated and looking for love in all the wrong places – a common scenario throughout Divines for Dounia’s mother.
Before long, Dounia witnesses a drug stash in the back of the theater. Dounia seizes the moment and takes the stash to a local dealer with her best friend, Maimouna, an Iman’s daughter, played by Deborah Lukumuena. The circle is complete as the drug dealer, Rebecca, played handsomely by Jisca Kalvanda, rounds out a strong cast of mostly female characters.
Throughout Divines, Dounia is searching for dignity. She lives in a Roma (gypsy) camp on the outskits of Paris and is frequently called Bastard. She discovers drug dealing as a way to gain respect and power. Before long, however, Dounia finds out the price she must pay for her vocation might be too high.
In Divines, Benyamina illuminates an emerging Parisian subculture made up of colorful, fringe characters steeped in Islam highlighting their highly creative, unique, and authentic stories. In furthering her artistic vision to democratize cinema, Benyamina formed a mutual assistance cinematic trade association, 1000 Visages (Faces).
Possibly quite coincidentally, American mythologist, Joseph Campbell’s tome, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” a seminal work on archetypal heroes and myths shared by world religions and traditions, contains the association’s name in the book’s title. However, I believe Benyamina has dissected the work drawing extensively from its teachings as we witness the transformation of Dounia.
For a first feature, Benyamina’s Divines is polished. Costuming is realistic. The camera work and editing augment the film’s reality well. The musical score sets the mood and aids in pacing. And the acting is quite good. Highly recommended.
Viewed by Larry Gleeson as part of the American Film Institute’s (AFI) AFIFEST 2016 presented by Audi. Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, was first on AFI’s first 100 Greatest American Movies Movies of All Time in 1998. Ten years later, a 10th Anniversary Edition of AFI’s 100 Greatest American Movies found Citizen Kane still perched in the top spot.
Loosely based on newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane was the first feature film by Welles. Hearst forbad any mention of the film in his newspapers upon the film’s release.
After signing his contract, Welles had been green-lighted for his film with a directorial final cut by RKO Pictures after his string of successes on Broadway with his Mercury Theater, including the thrilling radio broadcast of ‘The War Of The Worlds.’ Welles also brought several of his Mercury Theater actors on board for the project, several of whom would go on to have substantial Hollywood film careers including Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane and Ruth Warrick.
Welles shared writing credits for Citizen Kane with Herman Mankiewicz and the two won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 1942. The film received a total of nine Oscar nominations in 1942 including Best Picture, Best Director (Welles), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Welles), Best Cinematography (Gregg Toland), Best Sound, Recording (John Aalberg), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture (Bernard Herrmann), Best Film Editing (Robert Wise), and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (Perry Ferguson, Van Ness Polglase, A. Roland Fields, Darrell Silvera).
The film opens in what appears to be a surreal reflection with a Bengali Tiger and ominous non-diagetic music with snow falling inside a crystal with an utterance of “Rosebud.” A strong, deep-toned, narrative voice-over begins informing the viewer with wartime newsreel clips from “News on The March,” mentioning among others Khubla Khan. After a series of quick edits, a low-angle shot of a large, stone-built castle the narrator refers to as “Xanadu, a pleasure dome,” is held for a moment.
Without missing much of a beat the narration continues with quick frames of paintings, pictures and statues that have been “looted” from the finest European museums. Not stopping, the narration intensifies as the narrator projects powerfully about animals of the land, foul of the air – two of each – in creation of the world’s largest private zoo since Noah and the largest monument a man has built to himself since the pyramids using 100,000 tons of concrete and 200,00 tons of marble in its construction culminating in a crescendo as the narrator introduces by name only the film’s protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, the great yellow journalist and heir of the Colorado Lode. News stories and the biography of the his life and death are flashed on screen as the story begins with a smoke-filled room of newsmen trying to determine the significance of the last word the newspaper tycoon uttered, ‘rosebud.’
Told primarily through flashbacks as the mystery of rosebud is explored, Citizen Kane contains a highly structured narrative coupled with revolutionary deep focus cinematography, mostly unseen before in mainstream cinema. Cinematographer Gregg Toland provided the deep focus effect with his specially treated lenses and light-sensitive film stock. The deep focus cinematography allowed the entire scene being shot to have primary focus and thus allowing the subjects to have equal importance visually. In addition, Welles and Toland removed floorboards in another groundbreaking scene to create ultra low-angle shots of the newspaper men following Kane’s unsuccessful pursuit of the American Presidency. The effect visually is stunning as rather ordinary, though influential, men are now seen as overly large, powerful titans squaring off.
In its essence, CitizenKane, is the tragic tale of a man who has high ideals to be the people’s voice, the voice of the common everyday man. Slowly, however, the benevolence of the man becomes consumed with a passionate pursuit for power.
Tellingly, Citizen Kane’s message is still pertinent today. After Kane is defeated at the ballot box by the ‘sleaze factor’ (a decidedly distasteful tactic that can skewer even the most accurate polling data) he uses his newspapers to declare “Fraud at the Polls” in large-type newsprint headlines. Historians often cite Welles’ depiction of Susan Alexander Kane (a character purportedly representative of Hurst’s long-time, close intimate, Marion Davies) as the basis for Hurst strong negative reaction to Citizen Kane. More recently, several news outlets cite President Obama’s infamous roasting of President-elect Donald Trump at a 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner as the catalyst for Trump’s headlong dive into the 2016 race for the White House. Interestingly, even before Election Day, Trump declared fraud on the election. Interesting indeed. Citizen Kane is a must-see film for any serious cinephile and is highly recommended for all filmgoers.
Viewed by Larry Gleeson during AFIFEST 2016 presented by Audi.
Based on writer-director Logan Sandler’s own experience growing up in and around the Bahamas, Live Cargo is a powerful meditation on love, loss and healing in a post-colonial world. Shot entirely in black and white, the film upends the “tropical paradise” archetype through its sharp, neorealist focus on the day-to-day of the island community. Live Cargo is co-written and produced by fellow American Film Institute alum Thymaya Payne, director and producer of the award-winning documentary Stolen Seas.
Newcomer Sam Dillon delivers a breakout performance as Myron, a mysterious, homeless youth who is desperate to belong. He stars alongside Independent Spirit Award nominee Keith Stanfield (Short Term 12), Robert Altman Spirit Award recipient Dree Hemingway (Starlet), Robert Wisdom (“The Wire”) and Leonard Earl Howze (“Kevin Can Wait”).
Following a devastating loss, Nadine (Hemingway) and Lewis (Stanfield) retreat to a small Bahamian island where Nadine’s family has kept a house for many years. As they try to heal and move forward with their relationship, the community on the island shows signs of unraveling — with the island’s mayor, Roy (Wisdom), squaring off against Doughboy (Howze), a human trafficker who manipulates the impressionable homeless teenager Myron (Dillon) into assisting with his smuggling operation.
Live Cargo proves a welcome addition to Bahaman Regional Cinema and marks a stylistic entrance for Logan Sandler on the American Cinema front. Worthy of consideration.
Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed during the 2016 American Film Institute’s (AFI) FILMFEST 2016 presented by Audi.
Jackie is Chilean Director Pablo Larrain’s love letter about First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the days following the assassination of her husband, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK). Drawing extensively from a series of private letters between the First Lady, played by Oscar Award-winning actress, Natalie Portman and her Catholic priest, played by John Hurt, Larrain attempts to address what it was like for Jackie as she tries to cope with an overwhelming grief, tend to the psychological needs of her children and to create a legacy for her husband’s short-lived administration.
Portman skillfully channels the spirit of Jackie Kennedy. Larrain chose to recreate archival film clips with Portman. Having seen the original clips of the First Lady showcasing her masterful interior decorating of the White House, I believed Larrain had inserted the originals into the film. Only when the camera pushed in to a medium full frame was I able to discern the subject. It was Natalie Portman!
Several other scenes provided an astonishingly likeness as well. Most notably are the veiled widow walking in the funeral procession and the interview that would result in a Life magazine feature. Veteran stage and and film actor Billy Crudup, portrays the journalist (a dramatization of the four-hour interview Jackie had with journalist Theodore H. White on November 29th, 1963 that evoked the Camelot myth). Noah Oppenheim wrote the script. Greta Gerwig, currently one of Hollywood’s most sought after actresses, warmly portrays Nancy Tuckerman, the Kennedy’s Social Secretary. Peter Sarsgaard embodies Bobby Kennedy, the late President’s brother, protector and consoler of the First Lady. Last, but certainly not least, is Danish actor Caspar Phillipson as a spot-on JFK lookalike.
Most people know the story of the Kennedy assassination and some are familiar with the Kennedy Administration and the Camelot myth. What most people are not aware of is what a thirty-four year-old Jackie Kennedy experienced in the moments and days after the fateful day in Dallas and her need to secure her husband’s historical legacy. After watching Jackie, and seeing Mrs. Kennedy retrieve the portion of the President’s brain matter from the trunk of the convertible and place it back inside the gaping hole on the left side of his skull, I realized magnitude and scope of her love.
I believe this is what Larrain had in mind as he created Jackie. Intensely private, the world knew very little of Jackie Kennedy’s private life despite her immense popularity as a public figure. Photographed as much as almost any woman in the 20th century, Jackie emanated style and sophistication and evoked desire becoming known simply by her first name.
Larrain poses questions of how she must have felt in those days following the assassination. She became a queen without a crown. Her throne and her husband had been taken from her. Showing undaunted courage and concern for her husband’s legacy, she fought despite the challenges and obstacles placed in her way. Admittedly, most will probably never know exactly what was going through her mind and what feelings she was experiencing in their entirety during these days. Nevertheless, Larrain weaves together an extraordinary narrative that attempts to piece together a brief moment in time that became the genesis of Camelot and the Kennedy Administration. Highly recommended.
DIVINES, one of the most critically acclaimed and talked-about films at this year’s Cannes film festival and recent awards winner at the American Film Institute’s AFIFEST 2016 presented by Audi, will be available to Netflix subscribers exclusively today, November 18th. Get a first look below!
The funny, suspenseful and often emotional drama tells the story of Dounia, a tough, but naive teenager who sees getting rich or dying trying as her most viable option in life. Set in a ghetto near Paris where drugs and religion reign supreme, Dounia is hungry for her share of power and success. Enlisting the help of her best friend she decides to follow the footsteps of a respected and successful neighborhood dealer. But when Dounia meets a strong-willed and sensual dancer, her life takes a surprising turn.
Houda Benyamina’s energetic directorial debut was awarded the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the event’s selections. Most recently, the film received multiple accolades yesterday AFIFEST. Benyamina, Oulaya Amamra, and Divines were winners of the New Auteurs Audience Award, Breakthrough Audience Award and the Special Jury Mention for Acting.
Viewed during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Reviewed by Larry Gleeson.
Singin’ In The Rain, is a Hollywood gem created under auspicious beginnings as the writers, Green and Comden, pushed themselves through the night to come up with a musical recycling some of the great tunes of yesteryear. One can’t help but wonder!
The musical film contains toe-tapping tunes and choreographed dancing that are a pleasure to experience. The version I watched was in color and the colors were vivid and bright and complemented the tone of the film.
In addition, the musical had a significant industry milestone contained within as the transition from silent to talkies was showcased in a lighthearted, laughable, and fun manner as we see a camera hidden in a phone booth, a microphone placed in flower pot and the outcomes of such attempts as preview audiences laugh and guffaw at the attempts to synchronize and balance the recorded voices.
Even the film’s climax brings laughter as the audience witnesses platinum blonde bombshell, Lina Lamont, played to a tee by Jean Hagen, a prim a-donna of the worst sort, who has connived, bullied and blackmailed co-stars and executives alike in making her way to the top, being brought down as the curtain is raised showcasing a new rising star, Kathy, played by the effervescent Debbie Reynolds. The audience sees Kathy singing and Lamont’s contemptuous attempt at lip synching. When confronted Lamont speaks and the audience roars with laughter at her high-pitched Brooklyn accent.
The theme of contempt isn’t just introduced at the end. It’s evident from the opening as Don, played by Gene Kelly, overwhelms a reporter as he details his rise to stardom with his partner Cosmo, played by Donald O’Connor, with “Dignity. Always Dignity.” Yet, the truth is the two struggled and scraped and clawed their way to the top working in pool halls, slapstick vaudeville sketches and even burlesque. Not one to be left out, Kathy gets in on the contempt as she tells Don she’s a serious actor and then we see her jumping out of a birthday cake.
Meanwhile the studio is sending out press releases stating Don and Lina are a romantic couple. Hilarity ensues as Lina believes the press releases and is in hot pursuit of her man Don. And, studio executive Simpson, played by Millard Mitchell insists talkies will never catch on. Most everything gets turned this side of Tuesday as Don and Kathy become romantically involved, Lina finally gets what’s coming to her (although one can’t help but sympathize with such a nitwit), talkies catch on and sound get synchronized onto the film as it’s shot, and the project is a success.
Definitely a feel-good film from start to finish. I highly recommend this film the any cinephile as it’s a Hollywood treasure in respect to the industry at large and also because of the superb dancing and singing performances. Furthermore, I strongly encourage those interested viewers to watch this film on the big screen as it’s characters are larger than life.
Sarah Adina Smith’s sophomore feature is the story of Jonah, a man who has been split in two by grief — one who lives in the woods and another who is trapped at sea — with each incarnation looking for a reckoning with God. Actor Rami Malek delivers an exceptional performance, playing fractured parts of the same man and imbuing each persona with a wholly different performance. Kate Lyn Sheil and DJ Qualls round out the cast, as Jonah’s sensitive wife and a drifter who contributes to Jonah’s downward spiral, respectively. Director/writer Smith expertly crafts a darkly humorous and touching film that explores the nuances of the human condition with elements of conspiracy theory and quantum entanglement. BUSTER’S MAL HEART is a visceral, mind-bending mystery that will keep you pondering long after it turns your world upside down.
AFI spoke with Smith about the film.
AFI: This film deals with some pretty complex ideas — identity fracturing, parallel realities. Talk about how the premise of this screenplay came to you.
Sarah Adina Smith: The idea for BUSTER’S MAL HEART grew pretty naturally out of [my 2014 film] THE MIDNIGHT SWIM. Both movies propose a cosmology, seen through the eyes of a so-called “insane” character.
Suppose that your soul is a traveler along the path of everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. THE MIDNIGHT SWIM shows us a character becoming conscious of that path. BUSTER’S MAL HEART takes it one step farther, showing us a character who rebels against that path.
THE MIDNIGHT SWIM was about a woman who was never fully at peace with being born, who chooses a conscious death. She’s the psychological equivalent of an astronaut — boldly launching herself into the darkness, surrendering herself to fate with eyes open. She successfully achieves conscious reincarnation. Her journey is an illumination of the path of eternal recurrence — the ceaseless unfolding of space-time that churns out the magnificent picture show we call “reality.”
BUSTER’S MAL HEART is about a character who feels in his bones that there’s something essentially messed up about the great machine of the universe. The protagonist, Jonah, rebels against God, or lack thereof. He refuses to be a player in a game where he didn’t create or consent to the rules. He was born with a bad heart; that was his Fate. But he found love — tangible love — through his wife and daughter…and refused to let go. BUSTER’S MAL HEART puts forth the idea that love can defy the laws of the universe. That love has the power to rip space-time a new one.
We are all in pursuit of peace. We want release from a cycle that has no end. Because Hell is real, kinda. Hell is the dark factory that processes energy and creates all the beautiful events in the world. I am grateful for Hell because here I am, enjoying these momentary glimpses of “Heaven.” (The beautiful picture show of passing cataclysms.)
For the vast majority of eternity other than the tiny blip of our existence, we are the fuel that runs that factory. Our bodies are no different than the fire of every sun that was ever born…all energy that ever materialized longs to escape. We know for certain that we will die. That our bodies will become fuel for the great machine. The good news is that history repeats itself. The better news is that it’s never fully the same. We’ll rise again from the muck and live another blip.
Jonah is a man who wants release from the whole comedy show. He wants to be truly free. But freedom doesn’t mean anything if you’re enclosed by a cage with no walls. It isn’t possible. Buster’s heart cries out for a reckoning with God or gods or even just nature. He demands it. And he succeeds in calling that trial to session through the sheer power of his heart.
AFI: Why did you choose the film’s very specific setting — both in Montana and in the years leading up to the millennium?
SAS: One half of Jonah charges up the mountain seeking a reckoning with his maker, but encounters only the void. The other half tries to escape a reckoning with his maker down south, and is washed to sea, forced into a conversation he doesn’t want to have.
I chose Montana because it’s the place where Americans go to find themselves in solitude and seek a conversation with the divine. We also shot in the ocean off the coast of Mexico. I specifically wanted to shoot in Mexico because it’s the place where (archetypically) Americans go to run away from their sins and avoid fate.
AFI: How did Rami Malek come on board the project?
SAS: Casting the lead role was the biggest challenge because I was set on casting a Latino actor for the role, which I had written to be bilingual in Spanish and English. My producers and financiers felt equally strongly that we should cast a native Spanish speaker. We spent about six months trying to find the right fit and kept striking out on availability. It finally became clear that if we were going to make the film in 2015, we needed to broaden our search.
But it was really important to me that we cast an actor of color in the role because the character Jonah feels like an outsider in an otherwise very white community. We made a new list and pretty quickly we all realized that Rami Malek was at the very top. This is before MR. ROBOT came out, so I had only seen his work in SHORT TERM 12 and THE PACIFIC, but I thought he was incredibly compelling.
Plus, I did a tarot card reading and the cards don’t lie. I can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. Rami’s a disciplined craftsman and his own toughest critic. He’s one of the hardest working, most inventive and gracious actors I’ve ever met.
AFI: You have a knack for casting great character actors in your films, like Beth Grant in THE MIDNIGHT SWIM and Toby Huss and Lin Shaye in BUSTER’S MAL HEART. How does that casting process work for you?
SAS: Oh man, thank you for saying that. I really love casting. I had the great pleasure of working with the casting director Samy Burch on this movie and she brought so many beautiful ideas to the table.
Toby Huss had been on my radar from HALT AND CATCH FIRE. He has this natural charisma that I find very compelling — he’s playful and serious at the same time. Kind of a jester in the very best and most honorable sense of the word.
I believe it was my producer Travis Stevens who brought Lin Shaye to my attention. Lin’s such a terrific fit for the role. She’s an extremely dedicated actress, fiercely intelligent and a truly wonderful person. In the moment of a scene, Lin is all heart, which is a joy to watch.
AFI: We’ve had the chance to watch you grow as a filmmaker. What lessons did you learn on [AFI FEST 2014 Breakthrough Award winner] THE MIDNIGHT SWIM that you carried over to BUSTER’S MAL HEART?
SAS: THE MIDNIGHT SWIM taught me to trust my instincts, to stay open to surprises and to carry the heavy weight of a feature on my shoulders from start to finish.
I had a really hard moment in the middle of editing THE MIDNIGHT SWIM — kind of a heart of darkness. Because I had lived through it once, I knew it would likely come again on BUSTER. It did come, I was just more prepared to deal with it this time around. I learned to have more faith in the process and to release myself just a bit to fate, over which I have very little control.
BUSTER’S MAL HEART screens at AFI FEST 2016 on Wednesday, November 16, as part of New Auteurs.
The Love Witch is the second feature film from Anna Biller and it recently received distribution from Oscilloscope Laboratories. Biller’s first feature was Viva(2007), a dramedy about two Los Angeles suburbanites who experiment with drugs, sex and bohemia in the 1970’s. Both films are shot in 35mm. Biller wrote, directed and produced The Love Witch and also made many of the props and paintings and is credited with Costuming and Production Design. Biller also devoted time and efforts to the film’s musical score and composition and has quickly become known for using classic and outdated film genres to communicate the feminine role within contemporary culture. Interestingly, with The Love Witch Biller creates a visual style that pays tribute to the Technicolor thrillers of the 1960’s while exploring aspects of female fantasy along with the repercussions of pathological narcissism.
In the film’s opening, blood-red, gothic text provides introductory credits. Soon we see the film’s protagonist Elaine, a stunningly, good-looking young witch, played by the svelte Samantha Robinson, driving in a mint-condition, red mustang convertible from the mid-to-late 1960’s. An inner voice-over narration informs the viewer Elaine is leaving the city (San Francisco) driving into the redwoods where no one will know her. A flashback to the scene of her former husband Jerry’s death and more voice-over indicate Elaine suffered a nervous breakdown after he “left her” and she’s under suspicion.
As Elaine is driving the Mustang convertible in the first scene Biller appears to pay homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho with some nice camera work from cinematographer M. David Mullen with a police cruiser appearing in the rear view mirror coupled with a closeup of an eyeball. Other closeups are provided in this sequence of a Tarot deck and a heart card with swords through it as well as an opened pack of cigarettes. It becomes quite clear Elaine is hell-bent on having a man to love her.
Without much adieu, Elaine moves into a small-town (presumably in or near Eureka, California) and holes up in a three-story, royal purple Victorian home. Her friend Barbara, another witch, played by Jennifer Ingrum, has made available an apartment space within. The apartment décor seemed rather peculiar to the interior decorator, Trish, played by Laura Waddell, who welcomed Elaine and showed her the place. Trish commented she had decorated the apartment with the peculiar color scheme from a soft tarot deck while Barbara and “her students” provided the occult paintings and other similarly styled wiccan décor adornments.
The costuming and visual colors are alluring and highly feminine complete with a golden-haired harpist maiden and large pastel-colored hats in a Victorian Tea Room for ‘Ladies Only.’ Here Elaine reveals she has fairy princess fantasies and that all women are just little girls underneath with dreams of a prince carrying them off on a white horse. Trish agrees she has those fantasies too – commenting about how ridiculous it all is. After a slight pause Elaine confides she doesn’t think she’s found her Prince Charming yet. However, she believes she’s discovered the formula as she’s been studying parapsychology and now knows everything there is to know about men.
Her “formula” are spells and potions she conjures up in her apartment. She then proceeds to pick up her unsuspecting male victims, seduce them and leaves them forlorn and hapless. Finally, she at last meets her Prince Charming. However, her overriding and desperate need to be loved drives her to the edge of insanity and to murder.
The Love Witch is a beautifully lush film with its lavish, fetish costuming and meticulous set designs. It also has a 1960’s look and feel despite its contemporary setting and it makes extensive use of high-key lighting as it delves into female culturally defined roles with entrancing scene work. These filmmaking techniques and production design attributes allow Biller to encode feminist ideas within the frames of cinematic aesthetics and visual pleasure. And even though Biller was making a film for women, I can tell you after seeing this film, it’s a film made for men, too, with what could arguably have the longest running female tampon joke. The Love Witch is wholeheartedly recommended and dare I say…. “a film to die for.” It’s intriguing and, in my opinion, it’s fun!
Again, the film will be screening in Los Angeles at the Landmark Nuart on November 11th and in New York on November 18th, with additional screenings in select theaters across the country. Hope to see you there!
(Press materials provided courtesy of Marina Bailey PR)
Annette Bening has triumphed on both stage and screen since the 1980s. Early in her career, she scored a Tony® nomination for her Broadway debut in COASTAL DISTURBANCES. She has four Academy Award® nominations to her name, for THE GRIFTERS (1990), AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999), BEING JULIA (2004) and THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010), plus an Emmy® nomination in 2006 for MRS. HARRIS.
This year, AFI FEST highlights her role as a single mother in 1979 Santa Barbara in Mike Mills’ 20TH CENTURY WOMEN — one of her best performances yet. As Dorothea, Bening is a force of nature, channeling a smart, resourceful woman who anchors a rambling bohemian house with a slew of perfectly era-specific itinerants. Additionally, in RULES DON’T APPLY, the festival’s Opening Night Gala directed by and starring Bening’s husband Warren Beatty, she brings her sparkling charisma to a crucial supporting role.
AFI spoke with Bening about her films in the festival.
AFI: What initially attracted you to the character of Dorothea, and how did you join the project of 20TH CENTURY WOMEN?
Annette Bening: Mike Mills called and asked me to read the screenplay; we then met and had dinner. We talked extensively about his ideas, his mom and the character of Dorothea. Shortly after that he asked me to play Dorothea, and we’ve been talking about her ever since.
AFI: The film has an excellent and varied supporting cast, all of whom orbit around Dorothea in different ways. Can you talk about what it was like working with Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, Elle Fanning and Lucas Jade Zumann?
AB: We were a tight and loving ensemble, thanks to Mike Mills putting us together in rehearsal in immediate and imaginative ways. We danced, improv’d, did specific acting exercises and got to know each other. It was challenging and penetrative work, where we searched ourselves and each other to find the hearts of the characters. Hopefully that shows on the screen.
AFI: Does Mike Mills’ vision of 1979 resonate with your experience of it?
AB: I was 19 in 1979, and for me, Mike is contextualizing that time in his own unique way.
AFI: One of the many great things about 20TH CENTURY WOMEN is how it grapples with the idea of confusing and contradictory expectations about femininity and masculinity. As an actress, was it exciting to tackle this?
AB: In rehearsal and preparation, intellectual ideas are naturally at play. In performance, these ideas become nascent for me, and I’m trying to listen, respond and be in the immediate moment with my fellow actors.
AFI: You have a supporting role in the festival’s Opening Night Gala, RULES DON’T APPLY, written and directed by and starring your husband, Warren Beatty. Do you two have a collaborative relationship when working together on set?
AB: Working on RULES DON’T APPLY with my husband was for me a dream come true. He’s a great director, enjoying his actors with zeal and humor. He’s demanding and exacting in the best way and even let me improvise a little, and that’s my favorite thing.
20TH CENTURY WOMEN screens on Wednesday, November 16, as a Gala Tribute; RULES DON’T APPLY screens on Thursday, November 10, as the Opening Night Gala.
Divines 
Before long, Dounia witnesses a drug stash in the back of the theater. Dounia seizes the moment and takes the stash to a local dealer with her best friend, Maimouna, an Iman’s daughter, played by Deborah Lukumuena. The circle is complete as the drug dealer, Rebecca, played handsomely by Jisca Kalvanda, rounds out a strong cast of mostly female characters.
Based on writer-director Logan Sandler’s own experience growing up in and around the Bahamas, 
The musical film contains toe-tapping tunes and choreographed dancing that are a pleasure to experience. The version I watched was in color and the colors were vivid and bright and complemented the tone of the film.
bombshell, Lina Lamont, played to a tee by Jean Hagen, a prim a-donna of the worst sort, who has connived, bullied and blackmailed co-stars and executives alike in making her way to the top, being brought down as the curtain is raised showcasing a new rising star, Kathy, played by the effervescent Debbie Reynolds. The audience sees Kathy singing and Lamont’s contemptuous attempt at lip synching. When confronted Lamont speaks and the audience roars with laughter at her high-pitched Brooklyn accent.
